Quotable Country – 12/11/11 Edition

December 11, 2011 by C.M. Wilcox

Click the bullet after each quote to visit the source.

If there’s somebody that’s going to make me cry listening to them sing, it’s going to be Tammy Wynette. There’s something about the production then and the songs: They might not necessarily have been commercial, but they were real, and they hit a nerve, and they made you feel something. ●– – Kellie Pickler. Of course, Wynette’s songs WERE commercial in their day, which is why they topped the charts consistently for more than a decade. They just don’t seem commercial now, in light of what has followed.

Like Brad Paisley’s “Old Alabama.” [Nashville Scene] is criticizing it, among other reasons, because it paints an unrealistic picture of women who are in the mood for love after hearing Alabama’s music. I know that’s a far-fetched notion, but I’d rather have my music have more fantasy than reality. ●– – Alison Bonaguro lays it all out there.

You see a lot of kids out in the front row that used to be jumping up and down and having a good time, and they’re kind of distracted by their phones and their Twitter. And everybody’s got a camera on their phone, so they’re just taking pictures. Which is cool, but it’s hard to get people to live in the moment and just enjoy the show. They’ll post on Facebook like, “Oh, my god. We’re at the Reckless Kelly show! It’s amazing!” It’s like, “Well, post that later,” you know? ●– – Willy Braun isn’t a huge fan of your technological gizmos at concerts.

I mean take somebody as standard as [Merle] Haggard. You might peg him down to blue collar, but blue collar changed in the ’60s, the ’70s and the ’80s. The ’60s was about prison and recovering from young mistakes, ’70s was about love and finding that, and ’80s was about mortality with Haggard and stuff. So it follows the rules of life, and you’ve got all those songs to choose from [if] he is an influence of yours. ●– – Garth Brooks on Hag through the decades.

The strength of Rodney’s character is what allowed this to happen. In our business, not every day is a good day and there’s a lot of challenges and changes going on in the music industry including ours, so when an artist comes along and is appreciative, it’s pretty nice. Not every artist feels that way right now. ●– – Mike Curb uses the opportunity of re-signing Rodney Atkins to take a veiled shot at Tim McGraw.

What I thought was just a conversation that we were going to make a record to fulfill a deal at the end of the day turned out to be a turning point in my life and my career and the way I view music again. I was at a very vulnerable time in my life, and even though they weren’t my words, I could relate to all of them because all of these men wrote about what they were living and that doesn’t really happen anymore because everyone is trying to focus on making a hit record and it can be very stale. I totally believe the reason why I did this record now is to see where I want to go in the future. ●– – LeAnn Rimes on Lady & Gentlemen.

You can tell Guy cares about the lyrics. He ain’t gonna rush it. There’s not a wasted word at all. And it goes into your consciousness. Every word is important. Every word works. ●– – Ray Wylie Hubbard on Guy Clark.

I was astounded, because he comes across the stage to say hello and I was like “Aw, he’s so awesome. Like look at his outfit.” He had the most amazing little outfit on, and I was like, “That is a proper Grand Ole Opry outfit.” And I was just so excited about it. And then the show started and he was wearing a completely different thing. So it wasn’t actually his costume — it was just his clothes for the day [laughs]. ●– – Brandi Carlile on meeting Little Jimmy Dickens at her Opry debut.

I think everything is so PC that it drives me up the wall. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Australian and we’re not PC. I think people worry about stuff that is just a waste of time. Just say it. I don’t know what people are so afraid of. That’s what great country music has always been about. I do think we overthink things. I know I did when I made my other records, so I’m not pointing fingers. You might offend some people, but you’re never going to get everybody. It never occurred to me that you are not going to please every single person. There are people who don’t like the Beatles, so just do what you do. ●– – Sherrie Austin thinks you should just be yourself.

Country radio isn’t all that enthusiastic about outsiders who didn’t cut their teeth in the country world. The support is there but not so far as the machine, so to speak. ●– – Staind’s Aaron Lewis. Not playing his music might be the nicest thing country radio did for me this year.

I had it on hold (to record) for a good, long while. I felt like it was a really good song, but towards the end, it didn’t seem to fit everything else we had on the record, so I passed on it and never heard the song again until Jamey came out with [it] and started having success with it. ●– – Josh Turner reveals that he had “In Color” on hold for a while. So did Trace Adkins. As the story goes, Jamey Johnson won it back by the pure magisterial force of his beardiness.

Here’s another video from the George Jones birthday celebration at the Opry.

Is Aaron Lewis freakin’ serious?! Country radio has done nothing but open itself up to “artists” from other genres in the last 10 years or so, all of whom have said ‘oh, I’ve always been country’, or ‘the core of what I do is country’. Bull…get off my radio and gimme my McBride and the Ride.